


The Last Meal

by theSapphireSky



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dinner, F/M, Post-The Final Problem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 06:06:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16191620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theSapphireSky/pseuds/theSapphireSky
Summary: They had been treading around the events at Sherrinford, both too raw to discuss what they had shared, the confessions that they had made. In all honesty, Sherlock had come to terms with it not long after. But he respected that she needed time. So they lived in a sort of limbo, neither admitting nor denying the truth, always on the precipice of something more.It was time they talked. Sherrinford hadn’t pushed Molly away from him, and he’d be damned if a moaning ghost from the past would.





	The Last Meal

_Vrooom. Vrooom._

_Bang, thud. Thud. **Thud. THUD!**_

Sherlock snorted awake, his cheek sticky with drool. He reached out to grab the other pillow and cover his head only for it to be snatched away.

“Molly,” he whined over the roar of her weapon of choice.

His plea was ignored as Molly turned off the hoover of doom and proceeded to strip the sheets from the bed he currently was sleeping on. In his half-awake state, he scrambled to hold on to the covers, but one good yank and he tumbled to the floor.

“Woman, what are you doing?” He bellowed from his naked sprawl, now very much wide awake and disgruntled.

Molly stood over him, the sheets wadded in her arms, a furious look on her face. “The laundry.”

She spun on her heel and stalked away, grabbing the hoover on her way out, the cord trailing behind.

Sherlock glowered after her. This had gone on long enough!  _Yes_ , he was technically a guest while Baker Street was being rebuilt. And  _yes_ , she had been gracious enough to give him the space she thought he needed. But after two months, the tension was getting too thick to even breathe! 

Now it seemed Molly had reached the end of her rope.

Quickly pulling on a pair of trousers, he stormed after her into the laundry/guest bathroom.

She shoved the sheets into the wash and tossed a pod in, gave him a once-over, and blatantly dropped a second one in before slamming the lid shut.

Sherlock flushed hot with anger.

“May I ask, just  _what_  is your problem?”

She simply stalked past him, shoulder checking him on the way out, and began aggressively wrapping the hoover’s cord around the infernal machine.

“Molly!”

Heaving a deep breath, she finally looked up at him and he wondered if it was possible to combust simply from the force of a woman’s glare.

“For someone eating me out of house and home the past few months, you seem to have enough of an appetite to go out to  _dinner_.”

The way she spat out the word caused all sorts of red flags to rise up, alarms blaring. He blinked and as the theories flooded in, he looked around for his phone. Where had he left…the living room!

He hurried past her into the cozy living room and snatched his mobile from where he had tossed it last night onto the coffee table. He turned it on.

_Damn_.

Three text messages filled his lock screen. All from a number he thought he had not only deleted, but blocked. But there it was, she had even managed to hack the contact name in his phone to read:  **The Woman**

**I’m in town. Let’s grab dinner.**

**It’s been far too long since we indulged. Dinner?**

**Playing hard to catch only whets my appetite. Dinner, Mr Holmes?**

From the time stamps, she had sent these the night before. With the ominous sound effect.

_Damn!_

He sent off a quick text to Mycroft and then promptly deleted all her texts and blocked the number. Assured that she wouldn’t be bothering him in the foreseeable future, he tossed his phone aside and went to do some damage control with Molly.

They had been treading around the events at Sherrinford, both too raw to discuss what they had shared, the confessions that they had made. In all honesty, Sherlock had come to terms with it not long after. But he respected that she needed time. So they lived in a sort of limbo, neither admitting nor denying the truth, always on the precipice of something more.

It was time they talked. Sherrinford hadn’t pushed Molly away from him, and he’d be damned if a moaning ghost from the past would. 

She was in the kitchen, the entire room filled with the smell of cleaning chemicals. 

“Molly, I’d like to explain…”

“There’s nothing to explain.” Her shoulders were tense and she furiously scrubbed an invisible stain on the kitchen counter, refusing to look at him. “It’s none of my business what you do,” she tossed out with false casualness. “Or  _who_ you do.” 

She grabbed the bottle of cleaning fluid and practically drenched the counter between them with it. 

“I’m not  _doing_ anybody,” he retorted. She rolled her eyes and resumed her vigorous scrubbing. 

He wondered if it was possible to scour through quartz with a 2 quid brush. “Then why are you acting like a jealous idiot?”

_Speaking of idiots…_

Her scrubbing stopped abruptly and the temperature of the room dropped to freezing.

“I’m not jealous,” she said much too calmly. She left the scrub brush and crossed her arms in defense.

_In for a pound…_

He raised an eyebrow. “You’re certainly acting that way.”

“I’m not jealous! I’m…I’m just…I’m _angry_ ,” she bit out, and like a stopper pulled free, the rest tumbled out, “And I hate that I’m angry, because I don’t have any right to be angry, but I’m angry anyway, which just makes me more angry!”

He blinked. “I see.”

“Do you?” She snapped.

_Uh-oh_. 

“I don’t think you do. I don’t think you have any idea what’s going on in my head, Sherlock Holmes.” 

_Retreat!_

He took a step back, intrigued by both her fiery red cheeks and blazing eyes, as he realized this was the most eye contact they’d had in weeks. 

“All this time, I’ve been waiting, giving you time and space, thinking that as soon as you were ready, we could talk. Clear the air, move forward. Together.” 

_Damn, are those tears in her eyes? Yes, yes they are._

Running his hand roughly through his hair in frustration, Sherlock scowled. They had both been so stupid. "I thought  _you_  wanted some space!”

“I don’t want space, you blithering buffoon, I just want _you!”_

To hell with all this. In one moment, he jumped over the counter and pulled her into his arms, doing what he had wanted to do since the moment he said those three words: snogging her senseless.

Shocked stiff was probably the most accurate description of her reaction. She had squeaked in surprise by his leaping over the counter, a sound he quickly muffled with his lips. At first she seemed too stunned to realise what was happening, but she quickly caught on and melted against him, holding onto his bare arms for dear life.

When she was finally limp and pliant, he broke the kiss, but didn’t loosen his hold one bit.

Her eyes were dilated completely black and her lips, oh, her lips were the reddest, plumpest temptation.

“I just want you,” he repeated her own words back to her. “No one else…only you.”

She watched him closely, those brown eyes he loved piercing him.

“This is it, Sherlock,” she said somberly. “If we do this, it’s for good. I’ve known for seven years you were it for me-”

“And Meat Dagger was what, a pre-dinner treat?”

_Not good. Extraordinarily not good. Got to work on that mouth-filter._

Her eyes narrowed and her grip on his biceps tightened almost painfully.

“Sorry,” he said sincerely. She nodded after a moment. “I mean it, too. That this is for good. I don’t want to have dinner with anyone else. You’re my last meal.”

Well, that certainly sounded better in his head.

But then she was leaning up on her toes and she pressomg her lips to his in a sweet, chaste version of the kiss he’d planted on her earlier. So it must not have been too terrible.

“I need to hear you say it,” she whispered when they parted, their breaths mingling. “Please. Not often, just every once in a while, when there aren’t any threats, bombs, guns-”

He cupped her cheeks and smiled when she trailed off into a mumble. “Molly Hooper, I love you. And I’ll tell you every damn day. You’ll be absolutely sick of hearing it when we’re old and gray, but I’ll never stop telling you how much I love-”

Usually he would have been offended at being interrupted, but having Molly yank him down into a teary, passionate embrace more than made up for it.

Moving out of the spare room and into hers was just the cherry on top.


End file.
